EXCLUSIVE: While Cormac McCarthy’s novels have been turned into No Country For Old Men, The Road and All the Pretty Horses, he’s left the film adaptations to others. McCarthy has surprised everybody by writing his first spec screenplay. Nick Wechsler, Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, the producing trio behind the adaptation of McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winner The Road, have just closed a deal to take The Counselor off the table with a preemptive acquisition.

The terrain of the script is reminiscent of the rough and tumble world depicted in No Country For Old Men. The protagonist in The Counselor is a respected lawyer who thinks he can dip a toe in to the drug business without getting sucked down. It is a bad decision and he tries his best to survive it and get out of a desperate situation. While McCarthy’s ICM agents Binky Urban and Ron Bernstein were expecting McCarthy to deliver his next novel, he instead surprised them with the spec script before returning to the book. The producers moved quickly and spent their own money to buy it in a sizable deal. They tell me they will go looking for a filmmaker as they talk to financiers.

“The spec falls smack in the middle of what everyone responds to with Cormac’s novels,” Wechsler said. Steve Schwartz told me: “Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.” The script is contemporary, and set in the Southwest.

Wechsler and the Schwartz’s are prepping The Host, the adaptation of Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer, which shoots February 13 in Baton Rouge with Saoirse Ronan starring and Andrew Niccol directing. They are producing the film with Meyer. The Schwartz’s also produced Cogan’s Trade with Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner and were exec producers of The Tree of Life, while Wechsler’s in production in the Jonathan Glazer-directed Under the Skin, and wrapped the Steven Soderbergh-directed Magic Mike.

46 Comments

westla • on Jan 17, 2012 4:57 pm

Hell. Yes.

JohnDoe • on Jan 17, 2012 4:59 pm

Wow. I’m actually looking forward to this, but they better get a director and producers who will do justice to his work. He’s a brilliant writer, and sometimes that doesn’t come through in the screen adaptations of his books.

Lansky • on Jan 17, 2012 5:01 pm

I honestly think McCarthy might be the best writer ever. He “surprised” his agents with a spec that I’m sure will blow everyone’s socks off. What a gangster.

Anonymous • on Jan 17, 2012 7:31 pm

Yes!!!! Great news love his books. Hopefully this will start a trend. Too many remakes when we have brilliant novels.

When “Suttree” was published, I saw the review in the NY Times, immediately bought the book and read it. Then I read chunks of it aloud to captive friends and made them read it too. After I read “All the Pretty Little Horses” I told my friends the book was so good that nobody ever needs to write another one.

takeitoutsidemimi • on Jan 19, 2012 11:39 am

Don’t you mean “All the Pretty LI’L Horses”?

Jeff • on Jan 17, 2012 5:03 pm

The lack of punctuation in his books is so off-putting. I hope his screenplay is more conventionally formatted.

takeitoutsidemimi • on Jan 17, 2012 5:34 pm

That’s your comment, Jeff? Seriously? Clearly you’ve gotten a lot of validation in life.
Why don’t you take the high road here and just send Mr. McCarthy a copy of The Elements of Style with a discreet, but encouraging note. That should do the trick. Then perhaps he can do a quick polish with more commas so it’ll be less taxing on you when you do your coverage of it.

Bradley • on Jan 17, 2012 5:54 pm

Good one, takeitoutsidemimi. Good one.

Andy • on Jan 17, 2012 6:04 pm

Thank you!

craigisrex • on Jan 17, 2012 6:54 pm

I LOLed. Thank you for this response.

Yep • on Jan 17, 2012 6:59 pm

Respect.

Jeff • on Jan 17, 2012 8:35 pm

Hey, not everyone’s a fan.

roddymartindale • on Jan 18, 2012 11:20 am

Why do you care how the screenplay is formatted?

Mimi • on Jan 18, 2012 6:41 am

Why of course … because how on earth could we movie goers understand or appreciate a film if the formatting of the script was incorrect.

Just a rhetorical question…. have you ever seen an actual script?

monique • on Jan 18, 2012 9:46 am

So true my friend so very true.

fan • on Jan 17, 2012 10:28 pm

“The lack of punctuation in his books is so off-putting.”

Initially, I agreed with you. But then it seemed … superfluous…

“I hope his screenplay is more conventionally formatted.”

Why? Are you directing?

ari • on Jan 18, 2012 2:18 am

I happened to access Stanley Kubrick’s screenplay for FULL METAL JACKET and it was written in short story fashion.

Anonymous • on Jan 18, 2012 6:00 pm

Jeff, keep reading those comic books.

SimAlex2000 • on Jan 17, 2012 5:17 pm

No Country For Old Men started as a screenplay, I believe, before he turned it into a novel. But anyway, yes, this is epic.

Shef • on Jan 17, 2012 5:30 pm

How much $ did the movie version of The Road make? I believe about 7 dollars.
McCarthy’s novels don’t translate to screen, and this is just another example of Hollywood types wanting to fuck literate tyoes. They’ll get burned.

eve • on Jan 17, 2012 5:57 pm

How much money did “No Country for Old Men” make?

Uh, $171,000,000 domestic, off a $25M investment.

To say nothing about the four Oscars, including best picture.

How many Oscars did your movie win, “Shef”?

(I love how the embittered losers always come out swinging on these comments, no matter what the subject is)

Magilla • on Jan 17, 2012 8:08 pm

No, it made $171M global. $75M domestic.

Dumb Comments • on Jan 17, 2012 6:03 pm

Thx for the keen insight, Shef. No Country was a real box-office loser. So what’s that make Cormac? 1-for-2. Not that it was his fault that Hillcoat made The Road so self-serious. Or that it was Haneke’s Time of the Wolf did the same story better… as did Zombieland for that matter.

Shef is right! • on Jan 17, 2012 6:22 pm

You said it Shef, None of McCarthy’s novel’s ever worked on screen, especially No Country for Old Men, despite making a healthy profit and winning best film, best director, best adapted screenplay, best supporting actor, and being nominated for cinematography, editing and other awards at the oscars.

Good point

Will • on Jan 17, 2012 8:29 pm

Actually The Road made just under $28,000,000. So yeah, a little over $7.

CriminalMinded • on Jan 17, 2012 5:49 pm

My boss passed on this in December, it’s kind of a snoozefest, with few signs of the suspenseful build his best work thrives on. Disappointing, as i’ve loved several of Cormac’s novels.

Anonymous • on Jan 17, 2012 5:58 pm

From my experience, most bosses are assholes and idiots.

Thanks • on Jan 17, 2012 10:58 pm

Thanks for the astute insight on the vitality of the script

jLo • on Jan 17, 2012 6:16 pm

He shouldn’t give up his day job.

Rod • on Jan 17, 2012 6:40 pm

On CMs dialogue in novels: He writes so well you should know who is saying what, and when. If you don’t, just start paying attention.

On his novels made to movies: It’s rare that anyone can take someone else’s work, and properly put it to the silver screen. Ever heard the phrase, “I liked the book better?”

It’s not the fault of the author that someone can’t take their book and capture the magic that it produces.

Finally: Do you know that I was discouraged by The Road? You know why? Because I was sad that I would never read anything better written. I was pissed even. I said to myself, “WTF?” How am I going to read a novel even written as well as this one?

I went back to other novels of his, and read them. Discovered his greatness as a writer. Understood that we’re witness, and became less discouraged.

chris • on Jan 17, 2012 6:47 pm

I read Bret Easton Ellis’ first actual screenplay (Golden Suicides) and it blew me away. So hopefully this will be on the same level.

John Grady Cole • on Jan 17, 2012 6:48 pm

You mean his day job of being a living legend? Yeah, he shouldn’t.

MJC • on Jan 17, 2012 7:19 pm

No Country For Old Men, was a stellar adaptation of a novel to film. Maybe the best I’ve seen. Of course everyone’s got an opinion.

fan • on Jan 17, 2012 10:21 pm

I watched No Country twenty-plus times before reading the Book. (Tommy Lee Jones’ voice-overs made the movie, for me…) It surprised me how different the book was — chronologically, mostly; but very, very-astutely edited for the screen. What else WOULD one expect from the Coens?

Book Guy • on Jan 17, 2012 7:56 pm

Hell yeah. Hollywood could use some more Book Guys.

Needs a polish • on Jan 17, 2012 7:59 pm

and now they hire billy ray or flavor of the month to rewrite it and fuck it up.

Magilla • on Jan 17, 2012 8:17 pm

Even if the script doesn’t get produced, this McCarthy fellow has now got his foot in the door! Just think of the beaucoup dollar$ he’ll pull down for script-doctor work on Katherine Heigl movies.

Bart Dimsum • on Jan 17, 2012 8:41 pm

Especially if they work at New Regency…

Anonymous • on Jan 17, 2012 9:02 pm

Rigt on lansky. eyes open!

fan • on Jan 17, 2012 10:32 pm

Sure hope you got lots more, Mr. McCarthy….

I especially love your dialogues….

Carlos F • on Jan 17, 2012 10:50 pm

Yes, I’d see Katherine Heigl in a gender-switched “Blood Meridian”

WoahBoy • on Jan 18, 2012 12:18 am

The greatest living American writer. Period.

All Hat No Cattle • on Jan 18, 2012 9:56 am

All the kudos are well deserved.

Until we put down the crack pipe and remember that America’s greatest living writer is allowing James *Ganja* Franco to adapt Blood Meridian for the screen.

This suggests to me that while the man can certainly write he is no great judge of talent…which is depressing.

Dalton Hawk Mallery • on Jan 18, 2012 6:11 pm

I’m a HUGE fan of Mr. McCarthy’s, & I would be willing to direct the film at any price. I’m not depserate, but I’d love to direct this film. I’m 20 years old, I know it’s young, but I’ve won a few Bronze peach Film Festival Awards for my directorial & screenwriting efforts.

Creeping Death • on Feb 24, 2012 7:32 pm

Read script and mind was blown. Good business by the producers as this will skyrocket, but like BM how can it be filmed in particular the 2 scenes, you know loving the car and the snuff scene.